


And The World Keeps Turning

by katling



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Harry learns patience is a virtue, M/M, Not Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Post-Deathly Hallows AU, Severus learns Harry is not James, Talk of relationships, but what would you expect, divergence occurs at the Shrieking Shack part, it gets a bit philosophical in places, look! personal growth for both of them!, minor descriptions of wounds, theirs is a bit odd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 06:24:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10565484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katling/pseuds/katling
Summary: Somewhere I have saved a prompt list full of “reckless prompts”. I can’t find it but I plucked a couple of promising ones off it ages ago and finally got around to writing stuff for them.I… have no idea where this one came from, only that it popped up in my head and away I went. It’s Harry Potter AU where instead of just watching Snape get killed, Harry and co leapt out of hiding and changed the course of history. :DIt’s also Snarry but definitely not with a school aged Harry. In fact, Harry’s about… late 20s in this one.The prompt is: You showed up at my place in the middle of the night with bruises and blood and you won’t say what happened so I just lead you into the bathroom and clean you up.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just to reiterate, the key points of this AU is that instead of watching while Severus was killed, Harry, Ron and Hermione burst out of hiding and attacked. Severus sided with them and Voldemort fled with Nagini and subsequently fled the castle as a whole with his Death Eaters. He was willing to take on Harry and Severus on the same side. The war has dragged on and on and on because Voldemort refuses to confront them both and risk Nagini.

Despite the fact he was two floors above the front door, Harry woke instantly when the sound of knocking penetrated the quiet of 12 Grimmauld Place. He’d become a very light sleeper of late. Not that he’d ever been a heavy sleeper. Living in a house with the Dursleys made sure of that. But as the war stretched and stretched and stretched, sleeping deeply had become a luxury he could not afford. So he didn’t need Kreacher to come and wake him up and indeed, he was half way down the stairs before the crotchety old house elf had even reacted.

“Master Harry?” Kreacher croaked, his gaze wary and suspicious, though neither emotion was directed at Harry. Not these days, not after all Harry had done to keep not just Kreacher but all the house elves safe.

“It’s alright, Kreacher,” Harry murmured as he passed the house elf. “Go back into the kitchen.”

The house elf hesitated then retreated into the kitchen. Harry suspected he hadn’t gone far, just far enough to have obeyed the order but close enough to hear what was going on just in case he was needed. Harry pulled out his wand but kept it somewhat concealed as he reached for the handle of the door. He opened it slowly then drew in a sharp breath at what he saw.

Severus Snape was leaning against the side of the door as though that was the only thing holding him up. He was bruised and bloodied and there was an air of… not defeat precisely but of a weariness that was so bone-deep that it might as well have been permanent.

“I had nowhere else to go,” the tall severe man murmured.

Harry didn’t hesitate. He stepped aside and ushered Snape hastily into the house. His relationship with the former Potions Master was complicated, complex and often just plain odd. To this day, he couldn’t say _why_ he’d burst out of cover in the Shrieking Shack when it became obvious that Voldemort intended to kill Snape, Hermione and Ron scrambling after him, shocked and cursing but still willing to follow where he led. 

With a four against one attack in the offing, Voldemort had done his usual trick – he’d snatched up Nagini and disappeared into the wind. The subsequent standoff with Snape had been fraught with the potential for enormous violence until they had agreed to very tensely adjourn to the Headmaster’s office where Snape had dumped a series of memories into a pensieve and let them view them in full, from the friendship between Snape and Lily as children to Snape’s point of view of the incident after their Fifth Year exams to the curse and its subsequent fall out. When they’d tumbled out of the pensieve memories, Harry had been rendered near speechless. He remembered it vividly.

_“You knew my Mum,” he’d said, almost breathless from what he’d seen. Everyone always talked about his Dad but they always seemed to forget about his Mum. Not Snape though._

_“Yes,” Snape had said shortly, as though it took effort to force the word out. His frown had said louder than words that he had not expected Harry to start with that._

_“You loved her.”_

_Hectic red had smeared blotchily over Snape’s sallow cheeks and he’d looked away rather than answer that._

_“She didn’t love you.” Ron’s comment had been thoughtlessly cruel and yet not a single one of them could deny it was utterly true._

_“Ron!” Hermione had hissed but Snape had overridden anything else she had been planning on saying._

_“No, she did not,” Snape had replied, his voice hollow and so very lonely. “But that never mattered.”_

_Harry had blinked at that before realising that Snape wasn’t lying. Looking at the man back then, he’d known without needing the words that Snape would never have told Lily how he felt, never have alluded to it, never have demanded she return his feelings. Never have expected it._

Harry hadn’t thought that was a healthy way to act back then and still didn’t even now. But whatever any of them had been going to say back then had been lost when McGonagall and Flitwick had come charging in. There had been a lot of yelling and a couple of deflected hexes before they straightened everything out then they’d all watched in shock and no little hilarity as McGonagall had marched over to Snape and pulled him into a hug. Watching the very self-contained man flail helplessly had made things so much better.

McGonagall and Flitwick had been trying to find him to tell him that Voldemort and the Death Eaters had retreated and apparated away. Apparently Voldemort had been unwilling to face both Harry and Snape in unison… or at least that’s what it seemed to be since in the weeks and month and then years that followed, he had gone out of his way to avoid both of them. 

Snape had returned to the Order in the wake of the aborted battle at Hogwarts, though it had taken the viewing of a couple of the memories he’d shown Harry in order to quell any remaining protests. A number of the Order members had been chastened when they saw the lengths Dumbledore was willing to push the former Potions Master… and how far Snape was willing to go to destroy Voldemort. In some cases, far further than they themselves were willing to go.

Even now, Snape regularly put himself in danger to collect valuable information, though Harry had thought that what he was doing tonight wasn’t that dangerous.

“What happened?” he asked as he closed the door.

Snape didn’t answer; he just shook his head and leaned heavily against the wall.

“Master?”

Harry looked down at the house elf who was peering out of the kitchen door, eyeing Snape with open concern. It had never failed to amuse Harry that the house elves almost universally respected and liked Snape and would fall over themselves to assist him, completely ignoring his grumbling and glares. He’d never gotten a straight answer as to why. The closest he’d come was one night when Snape had drunk far too much wine and even then it had just been a muttered reference to one of the house elves at Hogwarts.

“Can you get Professor Snape some tea and maybe something light to eat please?”

Kreacher nodded and disappeared into the kitchen again.

“I am not your professor anymore,” Snape growled, though it lacked any of its usual bite and snarl. That worried Harry more than anything else. He’d been snarled at by Snape when the man had been what he had been sure was mortally wounded at the time. To have it lacking, here and now, was… unnerving to say the least.

He slung the man’s arm over his shoulder, grateful that he’d had something of a late growth spurt when he was nineteen. It made helping the tall, lanky man along the corridor and up the stairs much easier. Though the fact that Snape wasn’t even putting up a token protest was making the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

He got them to the bathroom and gently pushed Snape down onto the stool that was in the room for this very purpose. Enough of them has been injured over the years and sought refuge here at their last bastion of safety that Harry had long ago given in and kept a comfortable stool in the room along with a well-stocked medical kit, with both magical and Muggle equipment and remedies. He quickly pulled the kit out and put it on the bench opening it up and waving at the potions.

“Do you need any of these?”

Snape hesitated then pointed to two of them. Harry pulled the two small vials out of the kit and handed them over. Snape swallowed them both with barely a grimace then slumped back against the wall with a sigh and closed his eyes. Harry glanced at him a few times as he pulled some things out of the kit then he got a washcloth and wet it with warm water. He turned to Snape and hesitated for a moment. But when the man didn’t move or even open his eyes, he stepped closer and began to gently wipe the blood from the man’s face.

Snape twitched and shuddered at his touch but once again he didn’t complain or even move except to clench his hands into fists then let them relax. Harry kept his touch light, even when he revealed a long shallow cut on Snape’s forehead that had been hidden by the blood and the man’s hair. It was bleeding sluggishly but clearly wasn’t _that_ fresh. 

“How did this happen?” he asked as he picked up his wand and poked at the wound, uttering the spell that would heal it. He’d learned basic healing out of necessity and was glad for it now.

“It doesn’t matter,” Snape muttered. He still hadn’t moved beyond the odd twitch and flinch nor had he opened his eyes. That air of ineffable weariness was still very much in evidence as well.

Harry’s lips thinned and he wanted to demand answers. However he’d learned over the years that the more he demanded, the more Snape would dig in his heels and clam up. Coaxing answers out of the man required patience and a delicacy of touch that Harry wasn’t a natural at but had learned nonetheless.

“Where else are you hurt?” he asked.

Snape hesitated then he shifted just enough to start pulling his jacket off. Harry immediately helped him pull off the heavy fabric. The white shirt underneath was stained red in places and Harry bit back the words he wanted to say in favour of helping Snape peel off the shirt. Underneath Snape’s chest – and when Harry looked, his back too – was a welter of purple-black bruises and long shallow cuts like the one on his forehead. It was looking at these cuts that made Harry realise something about them.

“Fuck!” he snarled, ignoring the way Snape twitched at the obscenity. He’d never worked out whether the twitch was Snape swallowing a reprimand or some reaction to the act of swearing. “Severus! Who did this? What the fuck happened?”

Now Snape’s eyes opened. They didn’t use each other’s names often so each time they did was notable. He could see the way the man was deciding whether or not to tell him so he turned to cleaning the wounds on Snape’s chest. It would be easier to get answers if he wasn’t looking Snape in the eye. The man had never reacted well to that but this? This would ease him just enough that he might decide in Harry’s favour.

“I misjudged someone,” Snape finally murmured.

“Weren’t you meeting with Lucius Malfoy tonight?” Harry asked, a frown creasing his forehead. 

They’d had some indications that Malfoy was disillusioned with his current place in the Death Eater-led Ministry. They hadn’t believed it, of course. Lucius Malfoy was too much the coward for them to even come close to believing it. But both Harry and Snape had agreed that it was worth the risk to meet with the man.

“Yes,” Snape said, leaning back and closing his eyes again.

“Did he…?”

“No.”

“Then what…?”

“It wasn’t him,” Snape said. “It was Yaxley, disguised as Lucius. I knew the moment I sat down but I decided to let the charade play out for a while to see what was going on.” He was silent for a moment. “I… miscalculated.”

Harry didn’t say anything as he started to heal the wounds. Now that Snape was talking, it was better to let him continue at his own pace.

“Luckily, he decided he wanted to _play_ first,” Snape continued, the so-familiar sneer now evident in his voice. Harry was glad to hear it. “I was able to escape.” He snorted. “The Dark Lord will not be pleased.”

“Shame,” Harry said with massive insincerity and was immediately pleased with himself when he drew a low soft laugh out of Snape.

“Indeed.”

Harry gave Snape a long look. What Yaxley had done did not explain Snape’s mood. If all it had been was a bit of physical and/or magical torture, he would have expected Snape to come sweeping in, snarling and spitting imprecations at Yaxley, before he finally let himself collapse. This low and despondent mood wasn’t something Harry had ever seen before and he had no idea what had prompted it. Or how to even begin to ask about it. Or even what to do about it.

As such, he was startled enough to drop the washcloth when Snape suddenly sat up, wrapped his arms around Harry’s waist and pulled him in close. The older man then rested his forehead against Harry’s chest. He felt as much as saw the tremors running through Snape and reacted without thinking, wrapping his arms around Snape’s thin, bony shoulders.

One of the more complicated and complex aspects of their relationship had been the intimacy that flared and flashed between them. Harry would always admit that he had been the one to start it. He’d gotten spectacularly drunk the night Ginny and Charlie had been killed and had kissed Snape when the man had rather exasperatedly poured him into his bed. He’d actually shocked the man into silence at the time and though they both pretended it had never happened the next morning, Harry never forgot that, just before he jerked away, Snape had started to kiss back. 

He’d been twenty two when that had happened but he suspected that Snape had, up until that point, still seen him as the irritating boy he’d taught at Hogwarts. So he hadn’t done anything to provoke the man and instead had let him work things out on his own. 

Snape had been the one to instigate things the second time, though Harry wasn’t sure whether to count it or not since they’d been on a mission and about to be discovered when Snape had abruptly pushed him back against the wall of the alley they’d been hiding in and kissed him. He been busy kissing back but neither of them had missed the man – their target – who had looked at them then snorted and walked off. They’d immediately parted to continue following him and once again the incident had been almost aggressively ignored.

It had continued like that for an almost ridiculously long time. Random kisses followed by aggressively ignoring that any of it had happened in the first place. Harry wasn’t sure how long it would have continued if ‘That Night’ hadn’t happened. They’d both been drunk, drowning their sorrows over yet another loss – Harry because it had been Seamus and Snape because he’d blamed himself for not having the information to prevent it – and had fallen into bed. The sex hadn’t been spectacular. They’d been too drunk for that. But it hadn’t been bad either and when Harry had woken up alone, he’d actually felt a bit miffed about being abandoned.

Like the kisses, ‘That Night’ was studiously ignored but that didn’t stop them from ending up in bed again and again until Ron and Hermione just rolled their eyes and told Harry they both needed to get their acts together. He kind of agreed but trying to corner Snape on the matter was like trying to catch a very skittish feral cat. One wrong move would leave you shredded and bloodied with the cat nowhere to be seen.

This was the first time that Snape had ever tacitly acknowledged whatever it was between them and Harry wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or frightened, wondering just what Yaxley had done to prompt this reaction from the exceedingly self-contained and reserved man. Then a thought occurred to him.

“They know, don’t they?” Snape… Severus made a low noise and Harry continued. “About… us. Yaxley said something, made some threats.”

For a long moment, he thought Severus was going to deny it, deny entirely that there was anything between them, then the man sighed and his hands tightened where they were holding onto Harry.

“Yes.”

Harry nodded silently and though for a moment. “How did he know? We’re not exactly…” He snorted. “Let’s face it. _We’ve_ barely acknowledged there’s anything between us.”

Severus grunted. “We have a mole.”

It was said starkly, bluntly, with not even the slightest attempt at prevarication. Harry sighed and nodded. He’d known. Of course he’d known. He wasn’t an idiot and there was only one way the Death Eaters could have known about the… whatever it was that was going on between the two of them. Because it had only ever happened out of the public eye.

“Yeah, we do,” he said heavily. “What did Yaxley say?”

Severus twitched under his hands and was silent for long enough for Harry to think he wasn’t going to answer at all.

“He made some allusions to my… feelings for your mother.” He paused. “Then made some snide comments about… about us.”

Harry winced. He didn’t really need Severus to elaborate any further. He could imagine the comments that might be made about Severus becoming involved with the son of the woman he’d had a teenage crush on. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had second thoughts on that score himself. Not to mention third, fourth and fifth thoughts. 

He hesitated for a moment then decided he might as well take the bull by the horns. “So, was he right? Is this…” He waved a hand between the two of them. “…whatever this is just because of who my Mum was?”

Severus’ head shot up and his glare might have been enough to stop the heart of a lesser man. But Harry had never really been intimidated by Severus’ glare, not even in his First Year.

“It’s a fair question, you know,” he said evenly. “We’ve never talked about this. We just… do stuff then ignore that it’s happening at all.” He hesitated for a moment. “And you did care about my Mum a lot. You loved her.”

Severus glared at him for a moment longer then he seemed to deflate and he rested his forehead against Harry’s chest again. Harry waited patiently. Severus hadn’t pulled away or stormed out so he figured that if he was patient, he had a good chance of getting answers.

“I did love her,” Severus said, his voice low and bitter. “But if you recall, I hated you.”

“Eh, well, that’s okay,” Harry said, mildly amused by the admission. “I hated you too.”

Severus ignored that. “I did love her. Perhaps I will always love her. She was my first and best friend. I was the one who ruined everything.”

“You can’t take all the blame,” Harry said, still with that mild tone. “You were a jerk but from what I’ve seen of your memories, she was the one making your friendship conditional. You didn’t like my Dad and his friends but you never told her it was them or you.” When Severus looked up at him, he shrugged. “One thing this war has taught me is that none of us are perfect. We all have flaws. I love my Mum but she wasn’t perfect. She made her own mistakes.”

“They are hardly comparable,” Severus protested.

“Perhaps not,” Harry replied. “And yeah, you were a jackass but it’s not all on you.” He cocked his head curiously. “What would you have done if she’d accepted your apology? Unconditionally.”

Severus blinked and looked uncertain. “I… don’t know.”

Harry changed tack slightly. “Or let me put it this way, what were they saying in your dorm? I know you were a bit of a loner but you had friends, didn’t you? Mulciber? Avery?”

Severus nodded slowly. “I… yes. They… knew to leave me alone right after exams to let me digest everything by myself but they… they would have come and dragged me off to the dorms after half an hour or so.”

Harry nodded. “Good of them to respect your boundaries. So what were they saying?”

“That… that I shouldn’t do it. That I should cut my losses,” Severus said slowly. “That she wouldn’t accept it or that if she did, she’d hedge our friendship with so many conditions I wouldn’t be able to move. That she wanted everything on her terms and didn’t care about what I wanted.”

“And when you got back?”

“They… commiserated with me,” Severus said. “And Nicholas… Avery had a book I’d been wanting to read. They had a copy in their library at home and he’d had his father owl it to him.” He seemed to realise what Harry was doing then and scowled at him. “My choices were my own, Potter.”

“And Mum’s choices were hers,” Harry replied. “You don’t get to take responsibility for them or to take the blame for them. Maybe things would have changed if she’d accepted your apology. Maybe they wouldn’t have.”

“I am still responsible for her death,” Severus snapped.

“No, He is. And Peter Pettigrew is,” Harry replied promptly. “You may have told Him about the prophecy but He was the one who decided it applied to me and it was Peter who betrayed them. He was the one who gave up their location. If their friends had been braver and more honest with each other, my parents wouldn’t have died that night.” He paused. “Or if they’d just sucked it up and let Dumbledore be their Secret Keeper. But _no_ , they had to do it all themselves. Like idiots.”

Severus raised an eyebrow at him and gave him such a dry look that Harry burst out laughing.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Pot, kettle, black.” He grinned at Severus. “I least I get it honestly.”

Severus rolled his eyes then he sobered. “ _This_ … is not because of your mother.”

“I didn’t think so but it’s good to hear,” Harry replied. 

“I am not a good man,” Severus said quietly.

Harry snorted. “If I am, you are. Good isn’t in what you say or what you believe or think or anything like that. Good is in what you do, in your actions. You’ve done more than anyone to try and defeat Him.” He sighed. “I finally _get_ Dumbledore now, you know? I get why he did what he did. Why he could be so cruel alongside his kindness. Why he could love us and care about us even while he was moving us around like pawns on a chessboard.”

“He wanted to win the war,” Severus said quietly.

Harry nodded. “And sometimes winning a war means losing some battles. You _can’t_ win every battle. And like chess, sometimes you have to sacrifice your people in order to win the game. It’s a _horrible_ way of having to think about things. I don’t know how he did it.”

“By considering the alternative if he did not.”

“Yeah,” Harry said heavily. “But he wasn’t a good man, no more than you are or I am. We were or are all driven by necessity. We want to win the war. We won’t do _anything_ to do so but we will do whatever is necessary. You put yourself at enormous personal risk to get information. I stand around as live bait in traps because I apparently have some sort of death wish. Dumbledore sacrificed himself. We’re either geniuses or idiots. History will tell.” He huffed and rolled his eyes. “And I’m getting distracted again.”

“I, for one, am enjoying this display that proves you actually _do_ have a brain,” Severus said in a tone that was bitingly sarcastic and yet somehow very fond at the same time.

Harry laughed. “Now you sound like normal.”

Severus sobered. “I do not know what this is nor do I particularly care to define it right now. It simply… is and I do not wish to lose it.”

Harry considered that answer. It wasn’t really the one he wanted but as he had learned with Severus, patience was invariably the key to getting what you wanted out of him. At least, getting what you wanted in a way that didn’t cause him to resent you. He’d learned that was one of the key differences between Gryffindors and Slytherins. Gryffindors barged forward towards what they wanted whereas Slytherin eased their way slowly from the side and Severus was about as Slytherin as they got. Thankfully Harry had learned to be a little less Gryffindor and a little more Slytherin over the years.

“Can we… expand on it a little at least?” he asked, his eyebrows raised enquiringly.

Severus’ eyes immediately narrowed suspiciously. “In what way?”

“Well, it’d be nice to not wake up to an empty bed all the time.” He gave Severus a droll look. “I’m not going to shriek like an offended maiden if I wake up to find you still there.”

Severus went very still at he stared at Harry. He looked like he was trying to find the catch and Harry was careful to keep his expression open and calm.

“Is that all?” Severus finally asked.

“It’ll do for now.”

Severus harrumphed and then nodded shortly. “We’ll see.”

Harry smothered a smile. That, he knew, was code for ‘yes, I will do it but I don’t want to be seen agreeing with you because I know you will be excessively irritating about it’. 

“Okay,” he said equably as he went back to cleaning and healing the wound on Severus’ chest.

“It is always disturbing when you agree so easily,” Severus groused.

Harry gave him an amused look. “Would you _like_ to have a five hour argument about it?”

Severus very deliberately arched an imperious eyebrow at him. “Perhaps later.”

Harry snorted and continued his work. He felt like they’d talked _around_ the issue more than talked _about_ it but he was getting used to that as well. It wasn’t a skill that had come naturally to him but after the first couple of years of blazing arguments and being subjected to many of Severus’ more biting comments, he’d learned out of sheer necessity. For all their differences, he and Severus worked well together. Almost frighteningly well. Actually _definitely_ frighteningly well if the reactions of Voldemort and the Death Eaters were anything to judge by.

And it hadn’t all been one way. He knew Severus had stopped seeing him as nothing more than an extension of James Potter years ago and the Potions Master had learned to grit his teeth and actually spell out the initial steps in his thought processes rather than just announcing the conclusion. Dumbledore might have been able to follow Severus’ leaps of intuition and thought without knowing the intermediate steps but Harry couldn’t. Though he had learned to trust Severus when he made those leaps since he was invariably right.

His thoughts were interrupted by the door opening and Kreacher shuffling in with a laden tray. He moved deftly around Harry and placed the tray within easy reach of Severus.

“Master Severus should eat,” the house elf grumbled before disappearing out the door again, ignoring the irritated glare he got for the use of the word ‘Master’.

“He’s never going to stop calling you that, you know,” Harry said benignly, nudging Severus and nodding towards the tray. “And he’ll get grouchy… grouchier… if you don’t actually eat.”

Severus scowled and muttered under his breath but he did drink his tea and eat the light meal of toast and fruit that had been provided. Harry finished his work before Severus had finished eating and he stepped back.

“You should wash before you get some rest,” he said, packing away the medical supplies. “I’ll get a change of clothes for you.”

Severus nodded and then hesitated. “Leave them in your room if you will. I’ll wash and then rest.”

Harry heard the unspoken message in those words and smiled. He gave the other man a nod. “Will do.” 

He headed for the door and left Severus to his own devices. The war might be bogging down and Nagini still be out reach but at least one thing in his life was going in the vague direction he wanted to go. Who knew that would involve Severus Snape?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, it looks like I'm writing some more in this particular universe. This is set a few days after the first chapter as they start to negotiate the change in their relationship that they established. 
> 
> Again this came from a prompt, which was: “You’re heading out again? It’s two in the morning, at least take a jacket. It’s cold out.”

Severus eased himself out of Harry’s embrace and sat on the edge of the bed. It had been four days since he’d arrived on the doorstep of Grimmauld Place, beaten and battered and more than a little mentally exhausted after his encounter with Yaxley. It was the longest he’d spent in any place outside of his home in Spinner’s End and certainly the longest he’d spent with Harry, let alone in Harry’s bed. It made him feel twitchy and nervous and yet… he liked it at the same time.

“You’re heading out again? It’s two in the morning, at least take a jacket. It’s cold out.”

He was too experienced as a spy to be visibly startled by Harry’s sleep-slurred voice coming from behind him, though he hadn’t expected the younger man to be awake. He was momentarily confused by what Harry had said then he remembered that his usual excuse for leaving was that he had someone to meet or some other business.

“I did not mean to wake you.”

Harry hummed sleepily. “You usually don’t.”

It wasn’t said as an accusation but Severus winced anyway. He hadn’t realised that Harry had wanted him to stay on those nights they shared a bed. He’d thought he was simply a… convenience, a not-exactly-a-friend with benefits.

“Where are you going anyway?” Harry asked, rubbing his eyes and propping himself up on one elbow to look at his lover. He always left a single light on in the room, in case of emergencies. Unfortunately, they came far too frequently these days.

Severus’ gaze slid over the newly revealed skin until it came to a halt at the mark he’d left on Harry’s neck. He’d never dared to leave a mark before but from Harry’s reaction last night, it seemed it was not unwelcome. In fact, based on the noises Harry had made, it was very, _very_ welcome. His gaze flicked up to Harry’s face and he saw the man was smirking at him. He huffed and rolled his eyes but there was no heat in it. He hadn’t been trying to be subtle after all.

“Nowhere, actually,” he said in answer to Harry’s question. “I simply… couldn’t sleep. I thought perhaps a cup of tea might help.”

A concerned frown creased Harry’s forehead. It was still a strange feeling to know that Harry worried about him and yet… the frown that was directed at him now was proof of its truth.

“Nightmares?” Harry asked softly.

Severus gave a stiff nod, hoping that Harry would not ask about them.

“You should try Kreacher’s hot chocolate instead.” Harry grinned at the stern look he got for that. “He’s going to wake up the moment you set foot inside his kitchen and then he’s going to fuss over you.” His grin widened and became distinctly cheeky. “What’s your secret anyway? The house elves practically fall over themselves to look after you, no matter where we go.”

Severus scowled then heaved a sigh. “Titchy,” he said with some exasperation. “He’s been looking after the Slytherin dorms for as long as I’ve been at Hogwarts but probably far longer. When I became Head of House, he seemed to think it was his job to look after me personally. I sometimes suspect Albus put him up to it.”

Harry snorted with amusement. “It wouldn’t surprise me. The meddlesome old bastard had to get his jollies somehow.” He shook his head fondly. He found he could do that now – look back on Dumbledore’s machinations with fondness rather than anger. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because he understood where the old man was coming from more now. “So this Titchy spread the word?”

“Apparently,” Severus said so dryly that Harry laughed.

“Could be worse,” Harry said. “They could all hate you. They’d serve you boot leather instead of their finest.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve eaten meat with the consistency of boot leather,” Severus said. He hesitated then when Harry raised a curious eyebrow, he continued. “My… father occasionally went on a tear and forbade all magic in the house. My mother’s cooking skills without magic were minimal at best.” He snorted. “It usually took only a couple of inedible dinners for him to relent.”

He saw the way Harry hesitated and felt a jolt of sour amusement. He talked so rarely about his childhood that he knew Harry thought it was a taboo subject. Yet he also knew that Harry yearned for tales of his mother. Everyone was willing to tell him all about James Potter but Lily often got ignored and Harry hated that.

“My aunt had me cooking breakfast for everyone by the time I was four,” Harry offered. “I once poured bacon fat down my arm but oddly enough it didn’t scar. Accidental magic, I suppose.”

Severus arched an eyebrow. “Very powerful accidental magic. Most only manage simple things.”

“Yay me,” Harry said dryly. He sighed and shook his head. “I guess I can understand Aunt Petunia’s resentment. Her sister got the magic, the rich husband and the apparently cushy life and she got…” He grimaced. “Vernon Dursley.”

Severus snorted and looked amused. “By Cokeworth standards, she married up. The Evans family was… comfortably middle class but the Dursleys were…” He frowned and shrugged. “Upper middle class? Most people considered them rich, though I doubt they were truly wealthy.”

“Uncle Vernon worked so probably not really wealthy,” Harry said. “Though he certainly earned enough to buy Dudley plenty of presents and Aunt Marge was definitely wealthy.”

“She was the one you… blew up?”

Harry nodded and smirked. “Some of my finest work.”

Severus snorted. “You sent the Order into a frenzy when the guards that night realised you were gone.”

“If I’d know they were there, I might have asked for their help instead of just storming off,” Harry said with a roll of his eyes. “Though, then again, if they were going to make me go back, I’d have blown them up as well.” He paused. “Not literally. Anyway, it all turned out alright in the end.”

Severus grunted then crawled back into the bed. Harry raised an eyebrow at him then grinned.

“Found a better way to get back to sleep?” he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Severus winced. “Do _not_ do that. You look ridiculous. And I _was_ contemplating a better distraction. I may have changed my mind now.”

Harry moved quickly and pushed the man over onto his back then straddled his hips. It drew a sharp breath out of Severus and Harry grinned and he slid his hands under the soft shirt Severus was wearing and over his stomach.

“I like your ideas.”

Severus crossed his arms over his chest and refused to arch up into Harry’s touch. “Perhaps my idea was to count sheep.”

“I think not.” Harry’s grin turned decidedly sharp and he rocked his hips. It took a great deal of Severus’ control to not react.

“Impertinent brat,” Severus said and before Harry could protest, he flipped them over and loomed over the younger man. “Very presumptuous of you.”

Harry grinned up at him, glad once again for the low light in the room. It was just enough to see the amusement gleaming in Severus’ eyes. He tugged at the soft shirt the man was wearing. “Off. Why are you dressed anyway?”

Severus was still for a moment. “I feel the cold,” he said before shrugging off the shirt.

Harry ran his hands up Severus’ sides and snorted. “That’s because you’re so damn skinny. I should drag you over to the Burrow for a couple of weeks and let Molly feed you.”

Severus winced. “Anything but that,” he said with a faint edge of helpless desperation in his voice that made Harry laugh.

Now that they knew he was very much on their side, there was just something about Severus that made Molly and some of the others in the Order want to feed him every time they saw him. On the few occasions Severus had reported in at the Burrow, Molly had always taken one look at him and started cooking. It was hilarious and slightly heart-breaking to watch because it was obvious that Severus had absolutely no idea how to handle someone actually _caring_ about his well-being. 

Harry was fairly sure that Molly was well aware of that. She was nowhere near as tactile with Severus as she was with anyone else. Not that Severus actually disliked her touch – in fact, there was a part of him that seemed to crave it, though he hid that well and Harry disliked what that said about Severus’ childhood and life in general – but he seemed as confused by it as he was with her fussing. Molly seemed to be aware of all of that and she was careful not to overwhelm him, while still making sure he didn’t go without. It was a delicate balance and she measured it perfectly.

Arthur had the same deft touch with Severus that his wife did, albeit in different ways. It was easy to dismiss Arthur Weasley as a daft eccentric but he was a very clever man and a deeply empathetic one as well. Harry couldn’t quite put a name to the way Arthur was with Severus. It wasn’t paternal in any way or avuncular. The age difference between them wasn’t great enough for Severus to accept either of those roles from Arthur. He’d almost call the attitude like that of an older brother but he wasn’t sure that was quite right either. Whatever it was, it was something Severus could and did accept.

“Then again,” he said lightly, “I think I have a good way of keeping you warm.”

“Presumptuous,” Severus said again as he lowered his head towards Harry’s.

Their lips had almost met when the front door suddenly slammed open far below and Mrs Black began screeching. They both started and Severus rolled off Harry and got up.

“Fuck,” Harry muttered as he crawled out of bed and started pulling his clothes on.

“Unfortunately not,” Severus said dryly as he also dressed swiftly.

The noise from below dropped slightly when Mrs Black was silenced. But from the tenor of the voices they could now hear, it was obvious that there was more than one person down there and whatever they were here for wasn’t good.

Harry grinned at him. “Maybe later.”

Severus’ only reply was a very dubious raised eyebrow and Harry laughed softly before heading out the door to see what disaster had occurred now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realise I had another finished chapter of this. Found it when I was setting up my writing folder for next year.
> 
> So, here we go - Harry watches Severus brew and gets some insight into his past and perhaps why he did the things he did.
> 
> So, most of this is my headcanon but I like it so I'm sticking with it.

Harry had never had occasion before to watch Severus brew potions. It was an odd realisation to come to but it was true nevertheless. He’d had Severus as a teacher – and the less said about that, the better really, for both of them – and he’d known that he was the source of almost all of the potions used by the Order but he’d never actually seen the man at work before.

It was… mesmerising. Compelling. Utterly fascinating.

He knew of Severus’ mastery of magic in battle. It was a hell of a thing to watch and in many ways, Severus was in his element there, standing tall and dispensing magic with the barest flick of his wand. Not for him the showy swishing and flicking that so many others used. Harry suspected that half the time the wand movements had nothing to do with the spell and were just for show to hide Severus’ skill with wandless magic. In fact, he’d sometimes wondered if Severus was more powerful than he was or whether it was just that Severus knew more about magic… and possessed less in the way of scruples about what kind of magic he was willing to use. 

Watching him brew potions was a display of skill of a different measure, though no less fascinating. The book containing the recipe for the potion was open on the bench but Severus hadn’t looked at it even once. He was doing this entirely from memory. And if the notes Harry had seen in Severus’ old school book were any indication, probably taking all sorts of liberties that would make the potion easier to brew and better when it was done.

It was utterly compelling to watch him and though Harry had intended to leave Severus to his work, he’d found himself stopping in the doorway, caught by the sure and steady way Severus worked. The way those long thin hands with their clever fingers moved without hesitation to slice or chop or measure out ingredients. Everything about the sight in front of him told him that Severus had been utterly _wasted_ in his career. How it must have galled him to teach half-interested students a subject that he quite obviously found utterly fascinating?

“What _are_ you staring at?”

Harry was jolted out of his introspection by those sharp words and he stared at Severus for a moment. Despite the harshness of the question, the older man was more curious and baffled than censorious, as though he couldn’t imagine why Harry was lingering.

“I’ve never seen you in your element before,” Harry admitted. “It’s…” He hesitated as he realised that what he really felt was inappropriately turned on. Apparently he had some sort of competency kink that he’d never recognised before. “Amazing.”

He’d been half-expecting some sort of snarky response but instead his lover stared at him, red smeared splotchily across his pale cheeks. Severus stared for a moment longer then abruptly turned back to his work, the red on his cheeks deepening, though his hands remained steady. He cleared his throat but couldn’t seem to find anything to say.

Harry grinned. Who knew that the way to render Severus speechless was to genuinely compliment him? He winced then as the reason behind that sunk in but he pushed those negative thoughts to the side for the moment. There would be time to contemplate and even work on that later.

“I mean,” he continued as he came back into the room and closed the door behind him. “I already knew you were good with your hands but this is something else.”

Severus shot him a glare that had most of its heat stolen from it by the red smeared across his face but kept working. “Must you?” he snapped.

“Compliment you?” Harry said with an innocent expression. “Yes, I really think I must.”

He had the dubious pleasure of seeing Severus look genuinely flustered, though he couldn’t help but notice that the man’s hands never wavered, even for a second.

“What do you _want_?” Severus asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” Harry replied then he stared down his lover until Severus realised he was serious. The Potions Master was the first one to look away, back to his brewing.

“I mean… I knew you were good,” Harry continued in a blithe tone, though his gaze was anything but. “Everyone says so, even the people who hate you. You can brew the Wolfsbane with ease and even Hermione still has trouble with that one. But it’s one thing to _know_ that and quite another to see it.” He paused for a moment and chuckled softly. “You must have _hated_ teaching a bunch of uninterested dunderheads.”

Severus physically stuttered for a moment before continuing his work. “It was not my first choice of career. But you already know why I was there.”

Harry nodded and settled on a stool across the bench from Severus. “I do. Still… you must have hated it. All of us botching up simple things, let alone the difficult ones.”

Severus flicked him a glance from under an arched brow. “I am told you achieved some success… with _my_ book.”

“I did.” Harry grinned. “Do you have any idea how much I hated admitting that once I discovered it was yours?”

Severus snorted. “I can imagine.” He seemed to be relaxing a little and becoming more comfortable with the audience of one. “I had forgotten I had left it lying around,” he said wryly.

“I’m surprised Slughorn didn’t say anything,” Harry said idly as he watched Severus stir the potion. “He must have recognised your handwriting and you were a member of the Slug Club, weren’t you?”

“I was,” Severus said shortly. “But not inclined to be one of his sycophants, no matter how hard he tried to coax me into it.” He still momentarily then shook his head with a sigh. “Perhaps I would have been better off listening to him instead of Lucius.”

Harry cocked his head curiously as he sorted his way through that. “Lucius was offering to help you after you finished school?”

Severus nodded. “His family was wealthy and highly connected. And he and Narcissa had always been… friends. After a fashion.” He looked down into the potion. “Narcissa taught me society manners.”

“In a good way or a condescending way?” Harry asked.

He got an approving look for that. “I thought the latter at first but it… was actually the former,” Severus admitted. “She has her own version of the Black women’s strength of character. The three sisters were all strong women, each in their own way. Narcissa’s strength has always been more subtle than that of her sisters.”

“You admire her.”

Severus’ gaze flickered over to him again then he nodded. “I do. She is stronger than her husband, though her focus is narrower.”

Harry hummed thoughtfully. “So… should we approach her?”

Severus gave him a startled look then he too became thoughtful. “Maybe but only if we could guarantee Draco’s safety.”

Harry snorted and rolled his eyes. “Why should we have to protect him from his own idiocy?” he said with some asperity.

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, is it not?” Severus replied with a very pointedly raised eyebrow. He hesitated for a long moment before apparently making an abrupt decision. “He is my godson.”

Harry was genuinely startled by that. “You kept _that_ one a secret.” He frowned and gave a huff of laughter. “You know, that explains so much. I always wondered why he seemed so… familiar with you at school. None of the other Slytherins expected you to favour them so obviously.”

Severus snorted but there was an air of exasperated amusement about it. “Subtlety was never his strong suit.” He stirred the potion he was brewing contemplatively. “You grew up without a father, I despised mine and Draco’s father placed unrealistic expectations on him that he could never hope to live up to. I am not certain which of us had the best or worst of it.”

Harry was silent as he considered that. “I’m not sure it was ever a competition.” He sighed. “Is it even possible for us to protect Draco? He seems pretty entrenched in the whole mess. Other than our Sixth Year, it’s never really looked like he’s wanted to get out.”

“Does he have a choice?” Severus asked, very archly.

“Good point.” Harry sighed. “Even if Narcissa trusted us, would he? And could we even really protect him as things stand.” He pulled off his glasses and scrubbed his face with one hand. “We can barely protect our own and I won’t put them at risk for someone who might turn on us at any moment.”

He saw the way Severus’ face tightened then the man grimaced. “I have no answer for you.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Harry said hurriedly. “Maybe we can get Adrian Pucey to make a quiet approach for us, if he thinks it won’t put him in danger.”

He saw the way Severus straightened a little and looked pleased. Adrian Pucey had sent a very tentative owl to his former Head of House a couple of weeks after the aborted battle at Hogwarts. By that time, the truth about Severus had leaked out, courtesy of a few Order members and Adrian had been looking for a way out of his predicament. 

Though the Puceys had been purebloods for a few generations now, Adrian was, most emphatically, _not_ a pureblood, courtesy of his mother’s indiscretion shortly after she got married. His status as a halfblood was a family secret but they had received a letter that indicated it wasn’t secret enough. Adrian had been given an ultimatum – join the Death Eaters or the cat would be let out of the bag. Adrian hadn’t been willing to embarrass his mother or endanger his family and had caved in.

So Severus had met with him while Harry and Remus lurked in the background under the Disillusionment Charm, just in case it was a set up. It hadn’t been. Adrian had been willing to do a great deal to help, despite the danger, though Severus was fiercely protective of him when other Order members tried to ask too much.

“He would be a good choice,” Severus said with a nod. “They played Quidditch together and though they weren’t in the same year, they do know each other socially.”

“Okay,” Harry said with a sigh. “We’ll get the word out to him and see what happens. We need _something_ to dig us out of this stalemate and I’d prefer if it was something that went our way for once.” He watched Severus for a moment as he continued to work. “Why do our conversations always end up being more about strategy and tactics than whatever we were originally talking about?”

Severus’ gaze flicked up to his momentarily. “Habit, I presume. For a long time, it was safer to keep the topic on something relatively neutral.”

Harry grunted. “I suppose.”

“And the war is important,” Severus added dryly. “What else were you wanting to talk about?”

“I’m not sure,” Harry said ruefully. “I just… don’t know much about you. At least not much that isn’t coloured by other people’s biases or from those memories you showed us.”

“I… see,” Severus said, sounding very nonplussed. He looked down at what he was doing for a long time before finally flicking an uncertain glance in Harry’s direction. “What did you want to know?”

Harry drew in a breath then let it out slowly. “First… is there anything that’s off limits?”

Severus considered that. “I will let you know,” he said dryly.

Harry gave a soft huff of laughter. “Okay. Fair enough. Um… might as well go with a big one first. Why _did_ you join the Death Eaters?”

The look Severus gave him told Harry that he had not expected that as the first question. He was silent for a time as he continued his brewing then he sighed.

“Because I was young, angry and a fool.” He looked into the distance for a moment. “I wanted… money, power, anything that would take me far away from Spinner’s End. That would allow me to get my mother out of there. Lucius said that the Death Eaters were the path to all of that and I was foolish enough to believe him.” He snorted. “That went well,” he finished sourly.

“Your Mum…” Harry began hesitantly, remembering what he’d seen in those aborted Legilimancy lessons.

Severus’ face softened a little. “She was hardly the only woman in that area to live like that. She had it better than many because my father didn’t actually hit her.” He sneered. “He didn’t have the courage.”

“Why did she stay?” Harry asked softly.

“She had nowhere else to go,” Severus replied, his voice bleak. “Her parents disowned her because she married a Muggle and then they died shortly after I was born and left everything to a distant cousin in Europe. She had few friends in the magical world and most of _them_ had turned their backs on her for the same reason as her parents.” He snorted. “The magical world was even more conservative back then than it is now. She had no friends, no family, no money, few skills beyond her NEWTs and a baby, since she would never have left me there. As bad as it was, there were actually worse options.”

He fell silent again and Harry simply waited until Severus spoke again. He’d never heard the man speak so much about something so personal and his curiosity and his genuine desire to know more about his lover kept him silent, not wanting to cause the man to draw back into his shell.

“And she loved my father.” He shook his head. “He wasn’t always like what you saw in that memory, though his good days were few and far between as I got older. Cokeworth was a mining town and he worked in the mines. With all the troubles back then, he was out on strike more often than he was working. He didn’t like not earning money. It made him feel less of a man, especially when Mum started taking in work so that they could pay the bills. So he took it out on us.”

Severus grimaced and when he continued his voice was low and quiet. “But I can’t say he was always bad. When he was working, well… Da was never a cheerful man but he could be generous and even a good father.” He raised his head and his eyes were distant. “He took us to the beach once, when I was six. The mine was working so he was flush and he took us to the beach for a whole week. We stayed in a hotel and ate out every night. Mum was happy and laughed all the time. I remember thinking how pretty she looked. Da was happy too. Proud. He felt good, being able to take us on a nice holiday and let us have whatever we wanted.”

He shook his head again and turned back to his brewing. “That was his problem. He was a proud man and there’s no better way to break a proud man than to take away what makes him proud. For Da, that was being able to provide for his family. When he couldn’t, he broke and he took it out on us.”

Harry had barely breathed through all of that, not wanting to say or do anything that would cause Severus to clam up again, and he felt his heart break a little at Severus’ quiet acceptance of what had happened. 

“What happened to them?” he asked quietly.

Severus didn’t answer for a long time, enough time for him to finish the potion and start decanting it. Harry watched him pour the potion into various flasks and vials with practiced motions.

“Yaxley and Mulciber… senior, not junior… killed them,” he said shortly. “As a… reward.”

Harry gaped at him. “ _What_?”

“You heard me,” Severus said sourly.

“Merlin’s balls,” Harry breathed, pulling his glasses off and running a hand down his face. “I’m sorry.”

Severus stilled for a moment as he corked the flasks full of potion. “I never quite knew how to react, not then, not even now. Part of me was horrified but part of me…” 

He didn’t finish the sentence and instead turned back to his work. Harry understood all too well what he meant. If something had happened to the Dursleys, he’d have been horrified and appalled and yet… he couldn’t deny that there was a small part of him that would have felt meanly, cruelly satisfied after all they’d done to him.

Yeah,” he said thickly. “Yeah, I know how you feel.” Severus’ eyes flicked up to him questioningly. “The Dursleys,” was all he said in reply.

“Ah,” Severus said. He then looked faintly amused. “So much for Saint Potter then.”

Harry snorted. “I was never _that_ good.”

“Certainly not at following the rules,” Severus replied archly.

Harry laughed. “No, I definitely wasn’t good at following the rules but you liked that. Admit it. It gave you every excuse to despise me.”

“There is an alarmingly depressing amount of truth in that,” Severus said dryly. “And yes, I am well aware of the general opinion regarding me despising an eleven year old.”

“I was just confused that you hated me right from the beginning,” Harry said with a grin. “I was kind of looking forward to Potions until you made the class a misery.”

Severus shot him a curious look. “You were?”

“It sounded interesting,” Harry said with a shrug.

“Hmph.”

Harry laughed at Severus’ disgruntled reaction and came over to help him carry the flasks and vials to the storage cupboard.

“You said it was a reward?” he said after they’d finished putting away the potions. “For what?”

Severus grimaced. “Being a good and loyal little Death Eater,” he said sourly. “It was the way things worked.”

“And they thought you’d appreciate your parents being killed?” Harry said dubiously as Severus began to clean up.

“They were a Muggle and a blood traitor in their eyes,” Severus said. “Best for me to rid of them and make my own way in the world free from their taint.”

“That’s horrible.”

Severus snorted. “Were you expecting something different?”

“I suppose not,” Harry said with a sigh. “So you joined because you…”

“Wanted power and wealth and was angry and foolish enough not to care how I got it,” Severus said in that sour tone. “I never said I had a good reason for joining.”

“When did you realise you’d made the wrong decision?” Harry asked.

Severus paused in the act of cleaning his cauldron. “I’m not sure there was any one moment. I had misgivings almost immediately but… you didn’t leave the Death Eaters. Not successfully anyway.”

“You have now.”

Severus arched an eyebrow at him. “I wouldn’t say that until the Dark Lord is dead.”

“Point,” Harry conceded reluctantly. He didn’t like to think about that sort of thing unless he had to.

“It was a series of smaller realisations,” Severus continued. “Then the prophecy occurred.”

Harry cocked his head slightly to one side and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Would you really have just saved Mum?”

Severus paused then busied himself with putting things away. Harry recognised it as an evasive manoeuvre and waited patiently.

“Yes,” Severus finally admitted. 

“Well, screw you too,” Harry said with a wicked grin. He was a long way past holding a grudge about that. It was part and parcel of who Severus had been back then. He didn’t have to like it but holding a grudge about something that was twenty-odd years in the past was spectacularly unhelpful.

Severus snorted and looked faintly amused. “Did you expect any other answer?”

“Not really,” Harry said cheerfully. “Besides it was kind of what enabled me to survive, Mum defying him like that.”

Severus grunted and Harry decided to change the subject. “Will you tell me some stories about Mum? I hardly ever hear anything about her.”

Severus looked surprised then he softened just a little around the edges. “If you wish.”


End file.
